Bloodline

by Jill Jones

  She went to the phone stand in the hall and picked up her mail. Among the bills and junk mail were five Express Mail packets. Her heart nearly stopped beating when she saw the handwritten labels. “Good God, Jonathan, look at this.”

  If there had been any doubt before that Victoria was the killer’s intended destination, the overnight deliveries put an end to that. Both she and Jonathan recognized the handwriting as being the same as on the modern-day Ripper notes. The packages were postmarked in Chicago, Kansas City, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Seattle. Inside were photos very similar to the crime scene photos they had studied earlier in the day. The quality wasn’t as good, but the blood was fresher in these, for they had been taken by the killer.

  Clipped to each photo was a note.

  “And so begins the game. Follow my work closely if you wish to guess the secret. If you don’t it won’t matter. When I pass GO, you’ll be gone. Ha. Ha. Sincerely, Jack the Ripper.” These words accompanied the photo of the woman’s body that was splayed across the hood of a white Mercedes, a musical note cut neatly into her torso.

  “A juicy tidbit for you to consider. Can’t wait for a taste of you. Yours truly, Jack the Ripper,” came with a photo of the beauty queen and her skewer. “A whore in one here. I’ll stroke you off soon as well. Love, Jacky,” was with the photo of the gore on the golf green. The other two photos were sent with equally chilling messages, written with grotesque coy references to the signature of his slayings.

  Victoria shuddered, and for the first time questioned her decision to try to attract the killer to her. He was cold, brutal, and crass. And for some reason, she was the focus of his hatred.

  Jonathan grasped her by both shoulders. “Victoria, are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  She was beginning not to want to, but she knew it was the only way. “This guy has to be stopped. Look at those poor women. What did they ever do to deserve that?”

  “What did you ever do to become his target?” he asked. She saw fear in his eyes.

  “I don’t know why he’s after me, Jonathan. But clearly he is. We’ve got to find a way to let him know I’m back. We have to bring him in. Soon.”

  A knock on the door interrupted them, and she jumped. “Who is it?” she demanded, her heart in her throat.

  “O’Brien. Something’s wrong with your audio transmitter. We’re not getting anything.”

  She peered out of the peephole before opening the door. “Sorry. I turned it off for a minute. Is the van set up yet?” she asked, darting a glance over the shoulders of the two men on her doorstep.

  “They’re just down at the end of the street. Y’know, that bug isn’t going to do you any good if you don’t leave it on.”

  “I know, I know.” She turned the device on again. “Listen,” she said, carefully slipping the photos back into their original mailing packets, trying to avoid contaminating any fingerprints that might be on them. “Get these to Mike ASAP. And don’t touch them.” She went to the coat closet and brought out a paper shopping bag. Holding them by the edge, she placed the packets into the bag. ”Likely, the only prints on those will belong to postal workers,” she added, handing it to Grady O’Brien. “But you never know.”

  After the agent left, Victoria turned to Jonathan. “He got sloppy in Seattle. Maybe he got careless when he was taking the photos. Right now, I could go for a good set of fingerprints, the hard evidence you prefer, that would lead us to this butcher.”

  She reached to press the button on her phone to retrieve her voice mail and noticed that her hand was shaking.

  The machine spoke to her. “Tori, it’s Trey. Just checking to see if you’re back yet. Call me.” The message was dated over a week ago. There were several messages from her mother and one from her father, all asking her to call them right away, saying that something urgent had come up. Those calls had been made four days ago. She already knew the urgent news…that they’d learned the identity of Meghan’s killer.

  Then came another one from Trey, who sounded impatient this time. “Tori, where the hell are you? I called the hotel in London, but they said you’d checked out. Call me when you get home. I’m worried.”

  “I’d better give him a call right away,” Victoria said, surprised that Trey was so concerned about her.

  There were two more messages from Trey on the tape, along with several from other friends, a reminder from her dentist that she was due a check-up, and a call from the library to let her know a book she’d ordered from Interlibrary Loan had come in. “It’s been a slow couple of weeks,” she commented, waiting for the last message to play.

  The cold male voice that curled out of the speaker raised the hair on her neck and arms.

  “Victoria Thomas, you conniving, publicity-hungry cunt, you are going to die for taking him away. I know where you live, and I’m watching you. It may be today, or tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll wait until next year. But I will get you, and when I do, I’ll cut you to pieces, just like Jack the Ripper.”

  Victoria’s knees gave way, and she fell into the small chair that sat by the desk. She felt sick to her stomach. “That’s him. That’s what our man sounds like.” She fumbled for the replay button.

  After the second time, Jonathan asked, “Did you recognize the voice?”

  “No. It sounds sort of familiar, but…I can’t say.” Blood was pounding so furiously in her ears she could scarcely hear at all.

  “Is it Billy Ray?”

  She inhaled a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She could not afford to let fear gain control of her reason. She wouldn’t be any good to anyone and might end up getting herself killed. “Probably. But I can’t remember what he sounded like exactly.”

  “Too bad your guys never found him.”

  She nodded. “Yes, it is. They tried everything. The address he used for the symposium was that of a large chain restaurant in Fairfax. There was nobody named Billy Ray on the personnel records, and the manager was new and didn’t recall anyone who fit his description. If Ray worked there at one time, he didn’t make much of an impression.

  “Mike passed his description along to the state troopers and local area law enforcement agencies in Virginia, but nobody’s been able to locate him. Even the fingerprints your men found in his hotel room led nowhere. Obviously, he doesn’t have a record. And Billy Ray must be a phony name.”

  “What did he mean ‘you are going to die for taking him away’?”

  Victoria shook her head. “I can’t imagine. But it throws a new angle into the profile. It sounds like this guy is out for revenge, so there is a motive. Unfortunately, it may be a terrible case of mistaken identity. I never saw him before in my life. Why would he want to take revenge against me? Grady,” she said, directing her voice into the device at her waist. “Have you guys left for Quantico yet? If not, swing by here again and pick up this tape. I want Mike to hear it.”

  His plane was late landing at DFW. He’d grown irritable as the pilot reported again and again that their flight was in a holding pattern, and that they would be landing as soon as he had clearance from the air traffic controllers. The drill had gone on for more than forty-five minutes now, turning his irritation into alarm. What if the damned thing ran out of fuel and crashed?

  His anxiety was amplified by the tight schedule to which he had committed himself. This was to be a big night, and a dangerous one. In his last note, he’d given the cops an enormous clue, and unless they were too dimwitted to get the implication, he expected to find security in both Dallas and Fort Worth rather tight, especially around the country clubs, theaters, opera, and charity events. That’s where he’d struck before, and that’s where they would expect him to strike again.

  He toyed with the swizzle stick that had come in his drink and smiled. They were so wrong. Tonight, he would kill another kind of whore. The kind the master had killed. Two of them, in fact.

  It was a big order, but he could fill it. And move his piece along one more space on his game boar
d.

  He was getting closer to the end, the grand finale. But he was troubled. By now, his name should have been splashed on every newspaper and television across the country. Instead, he remained unheralded and ignored. It was probably her fault. Damned controlling bitch. He would not complete the game without attaining the fame he deserved. He had already surpassed the master in number, distance, and ingenuity. Yet no one had heard of him.

  The pressure of his thumb snapped the stir stick with a pop.

  The country dance hall in Fort Worth was in full swing by the time he arrived. Cowboys and yuppies alike, dressed in tight jeans and cowboy boots, sipped on longnecks and tried to score with the whores in even tighter jeans.

  He wouldn’t have minded the scene if they’d all been for real. He had a great respect for the working man. But the phonies really got to him. They were easy to spot. Their jeans said Eddie Bauer instead of Levi. Their hats were neat, not battered, and they showed no soil. On their carefully manicured hands, their diamonds were bigger. They were slumming, and so was he. But one of them would pay for her social hypocrisy.

  It didn’t take him long to spot her, a busty redhead in a glitzy purple shirt that was soaked with sequins, more likely purchased at an exclusive boutique than at J.C. Penney. She was trying to look with it and thirty-something, but he’d bet she was ten years older than that.

  That was fine. He hadn’t killed an old whore yet.

  She sat alone, watching the dancers, drinking a beer, and looking distinctly forlorn. When he sat beside her, she turned unfocused eyes on him and tried to smile. “Hi, cowboy,” she said. He could smell the beer on her breath.

  “Howdy, honey. You here with anybody tonight?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. It’s just me and my Lone Star.” She hiccoughed. “You’re pretty cute.”

  “Want to dance?”

  “Um, sure.”

  They made their way onto the crowded dance floor, but she was too drunk to do the two-step. “How about we go out for a little fresh air?” he suggested. They were all alike, he thought with contempt. So easy.

  He guided her through the parking lot to where he’d left the rental car. He’d chosen a spot out of the glare of the floodlights that illuminated the lot for safety. He slipped on a pair of plastic gloves as he walked behind her. The music filtered faintly from the bar. “Now would you like to dance?” he said, feeling a sudden urgency to finish the work.

  She hiccoughed again. “Where? Here? Are you crazy or something?”

  He turned on her in fury, grabbing her arm. “Why not, bitch? You think you’re too good for me?”

  He hadn’t meant to lose control, but he’d had a bad day, and the words spilled out before he could stop them. Her eyes widened, and she tried to pull away. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he hissed.

  “Help!” she managed to cry out before his fingers encircled her neck.

  Damn her to hell, he thought, panicked. What if she’d alerted someone? Hastily, he finished the job, not finding the fulfillment that he so desperately needed, not even when he cut her neck. It was the only slash he took the time to inflict, for he heard voices nearby. Shit. He wiped the knife on her jeans and secured it, then ran for his car, leaving her buxom body crumpled on the asphalt.

  He drove around the deserted streets of downtown Cowtown, as they called Fort Worth, trying to recover from the disappointment. His hands shook, and he stopped at a 7-Eleven for an ice cream bar. He preferred the sugar from alcohol to calm his nerves, but he needed to be clearheaded tonight. Ice cream would have to suffice.

  He returned to his car and sat behind the wheel, thinking. He should have finished the job. He should have made the old whore pay with more than her life for her rejection of him. Bitch. Cunt. Mother…

  His rage burned out of control. He had to go back. He had to finish the job. Maybe nobody had found her yet.

  But about a block from the dance hall, he heard sirens. He pulled to the curb. Police cars and an ambulance raced past him and careened into the parking lot of the nightclub. He pounded the steering wheel.

  Damn it. Too late.

  Then he paused as an idea struck him. This could be fun. If he wasn’t yet famous on the national news, he was sure to be the talk of the parking lot. They wouldn’t know his name, of course. Or that he was the killer. But he would be able to hear what they said about him. He would see the terror his work instilled in the rest of the whores. It wasn’t what his body craved, but it was a fulfillment of a different sort.

  He locked the car and walked toward the parking lot. He heard a man’s voice as he approached the scene. “He damned near cut her head off.”

  “Oh, this is gross,” said a young female. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  He pushed as close as the police would let him. The whore in the purple shirt lay about thirty feet away, looking like a dead cow.

  “What happened?” he asked casually to the man standing next to him.

  “Somebody murdered her. Cut her throat, I heard.”

  His date looked up at him, fear etched on her face. “I saw the news on CNN tonight, Davy,” she said, her worried words drawn out with a heavy Texas accent. “There’s a killer traveling across the country, slashing women, just like Jack the Ripper. Maybe he’s right here in Fort Worth.”

  She immediately had his full attention. “What’s that?” he asked her.

  “On the news. They’re calling him Traveling Jack, because he’s been traveling around the country, killing women, ripping them like I said.” She turned anxious eyes to her date. “I’m scared, Davy. Can we go home now?”

  He watched them leave, a glow of deep satisfaction suffusing him. Traveling Jack. Not the name of the master, but not bad.

  Traveling Jack.

  He liked having a name of his own.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  London

  Tenth November 1888

  I can scarcely put pen to paper, even though a full day has passed since the bloody night’s work that surpassed all others. I had no plan for this one until Eddy knocked upon my door yesterday morning, his face haggard, his eyes wildly tormented. He had just escaped from the asylum where he has been held prisoner since our last quest by Dr. Gull, the Queen’s physician, at the old Whore’s own request. He was in tears and cried out for vengeance against the women who control his every move. I held him in my arms, soothing him and rocking until he calmed. My poor, poor Prince. My heart filled with rage and my loins grew hard with dark passion. I wanted kill the old Whore Queen for reducing my beloved to this state.

  He, too, was overcome with rage and demanded we return to Whitechapel. He screamed he would kill every whore he saw, but I soothed him at last and insisted one would suffice. At nightfall, we made our move. It was our luck that the whore dwelt in a private room, a room we had all to ourselves for as long as the night would cover us. Working by the blaze of the fire, which we kept burning brightly using her clothing as fuel, we cut the whore into pieces.

  My hands are bloody still, and I cannot seem to remove the stain from beneath my fingernails. I fulfilled my need early on, but Eddy cried and slashed at the body in a frenzy, cursing the old Whore Queen and Mother Dear with every stroke. I have never seen him in such a state, and I could only wonder what infernal medications that doctor had forced upon him. His strength was like that of two men, his stamina far outstripping mine.

  When at last he had satiated his bloodlust, he turned to me, his eyes feral and shining in the firelight. He was clearly mad as he dashed out into the graying light of predawn, and although I followed in quick pursuit, he outstripped me and vanished into the thick fog. I know not where he went, but I fear our secret is no longer safe, and that soon our Jack himself will be ripped.

  He checked into the high rise hotel in Dallas and wasted no time in tuning into CNN Headline News. He nearly went insane while waiting for the sports news and what seemed like an endless stream of commercials to run before the main news was repeated
. It was the top of the hour at one am on Sunday morning.

  “Top agents with the FBI have joined forces with police in major metro areas in search of a man they’re calling ‘Traveling Jack,’” the announcer said. “According to sources, he is suspected of viciously killing and mutilating six women, one each in Chicago, Kansas City, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, and Boulder. Here’s more…”

  And there she was. Victoria Thomas was speaking into a microphone at a press conference. She looked regal, although a little on the severe side, he thought, with her hair all pulled back and her face pale. She wore a tasteful, expensive-looking navy suit and a white blouse and looked every inch the ice queen. The supercilious bitch. Rage boiled in his gut. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on her.

  “This man kills in the style of Jack the Ripper,” she was saying. “He is delusional and may even think he is that famous killer, although he’s only a copycat.”

  “Copycat!” He screamed at the television. “Fuck you, bitch. You don’t know anything. I have the blood of the master in my veins, and nothing, nobody, not even you, can stop me.” He lowered his voice, hoping he hadn’t been heard by whoever occupied the room next door.

  He mustn’t let her get to him. He must maintain control. But what came next nearly sent him over the edge.

  The announcer returned to the screen. “A national manhunt is underway for the killer, who is believed to be a white male in his mid to late twenties who has been known to go by the name of Billy Ray.” The camera cut to a police sketch of the suspect, and he stared at it, fury mounting like an inferno.

  “No,” he growled, his hands shaking. “No. She can’t do this to me. That fucking bitch…”

  It was nearly dawn when he returned to the hotel, shaken and spent. He went in by the most remote door and climbed the stairs to his eleventh-floor room, because his clothes were covered with blood.